


We Are Blinded

by CausingCommotions



Category: Tarzan (1999), Treasure Planet (2002)
Genre: F/F, Female-Centric, Inspired by..., Interspecies Romance, Lesbian Character, Outer Space, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, Pansexual Character, Romance, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6961672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CausingCommotions/pseuds/CausingCommotions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She'd had so many plans when she first left her planet, but three years later all she was left with was a string of bad mistakes and a suitcase packed in secret. Fear tugged at her with every heartbeat, whispering: <i>go back, go back.</i>"</p>
<p>Jane Porter needs to run, and a research expedition to a far-off planet is the only chance she has. The captain of her commissioned ship is the fierce Naval legend Captain Amelia, a woman with a restless soul and a tongue as sharp as her fangs. The pull that brings them together is like gravity, and neither expects to fall as hard as they do. But Jane's past has a way of catching up to her, and when it does, it leaves a trail of vengeance and blood that stretches all the way across the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preparations

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is based on a video by TheNamelessDoll on Youtube called "Illuminated:" Go check it out! A big thank-you to her for talking to me and giving all the background info I needed. Hope you enjoy!

Standing on the dock of the interstellar spaceport, Jane realized that she had never been this reckless in her entire life. Nearly twenty years of perfectly boring upbringing on Earth, and then the several years following, riddled with mistakes but always looking before she leapt. Now, for the first time, she was sailing off somewhere without much of a clue as to what to do once she got there. If her father could see her… 

Jane’s fingers tightened on her raggedy sketchbook. She hadn’t spoken with her father in years. Perhaps he thought she was dead. 

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. The docks were far too crowded a place to be lost in daydreams. There were people everywhere – strange, amorphous people – all pushing and shoving and in a hurry to get somewhere. Jane was jostled along with them, too timid to push back, but riding the current all the way to her destination at the far end of the dock. 

As ships went, the Legacy was a hard one to miss. She was a Navy galleon, big and broad-hulled and beautiful. Daylight glinted off her timbers and solar sails, tightly furled as she floated in port. Jane stared up at it in awe. She had _commissioned_ that ship. She would be living on it for the next few months, sailing off into the most desolate corners of space on nothing more than a hypothesis. It was madness. 

_Anywhere’s better than where you’ve been,_ Jane thought. 

A clock chimed somewhere nearby. A quarter to nine. Jane clutched her sketchbook and parasol tighter and began dodging through the crowd, picking her way toward the Legacy as fast as the surging hordes would allow. She was nearly late, and it wouldn’t do to make a bad first impression with the captain so early on. 

 

*****

The captain of the _RLS Legacy_ was in a foul mood. Her first mate could practically feel it rolling off her in waves as she paced her stateroom, ears flat back against her head, snarling. Arrow knew it was best to let her stew, so he ignored her pacing and contented himself with studying the maps. The captain would talk when she was ready, and talk she did, after several long minutes of scowling and tutting to herself. 

“I can’t help but feel that it’s a punishment,” she growled. 

“It isn’t,” Arrow said without looking up. “The Admiral knows you’re the finest in the galaxy.”

“Then why this?” Amelia gestured widely with one gloved hand. She wasn’t remarking on the ship, of course: Amelia and the _Legacy_ had been bonded for life since her first expedition, and though they’d had their fair share of scrapes they had never let each other down. “Why this preposterous conscripted outing to the furthest reach of the known universe?”

“Because you are the finest,” Arrow said complacently. His chiseled face belied nothing but patience. “The girl paid for the best, and that is what she gets.”

“My last voyage was a paramilitary scouting mission to the Cygnus Cross,” she muttered. “A band of pirates every twenty leagues, danger at every turn, and now what? I’m to be chaperoning a dozy scientist as she studies the mating habits of three-tailed dingbats or some other ridiculous fauna.”

Mr. Arrow cracked a smile – and cracked was the perfect word for it, as it spread across his face like a fissure in rock – as he said, “I’m sure it won’t be three-tailed dingbats, ma’am.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s bound to be an absolute drudge of a trip.” Amelia sighed and ran a hand through her short-cropped ginger hair. “I suppose I’ve wasted enough time. The scientist will be here any minute, and we’re due to leave port in an hour. Ensure all requested cargo is stored belowdecks, Mr. Arrow.”

Arrow nodded and gave her a brisk “Aye, Captain,” then followed her as she doffed her trifolded hat and made for the upper deck. Unsatisfactory mission or not, she had a job to do, and she would rather see herself tied to the anchor than leave it undone.


	2. First Impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks for the amazing response to the first chapter! And an especially big thank you to TheNamelessDoll for sharing it on her tumblr. Wouldn't have gotten half the response I have without her! That said, I hope you enjoy this next installment. New chapters won't be terribly regular but I'll do my best to get stuff out for you guys.

The deck was so alive with activity when Jane stepped aboard, it felt as though she’d stepped into the middle of a whirlwind. Spacers of every type swarmed the rigging, hauled crates of cargo onboard, and shouted to each other in a cacophony of sound and mixed languages. Jane was in awe. This. _This_ was the world she had wanted to see. 

When she was still a girl, her father, a primatologist who had frequent, passionate trysts into every other branch of science, had instilled in her a love for all things living. She’d held her first human skull when she was eight. Diagrams of human and primate skeletons hung on the walls next to their family portraits. Over tea, she’d heard his longing sighs over the thought of studying gorillas in Africa, and his impromptu lectures on chimpanzees and their almost human-like hunting habits. More than once, she’d endured his chucklings about bonobos using sex to solve conflicts and how he’d known several people like that in his time, her late mother included. Then, as she’d entered secondary school, word reached London of something extraordinary – word of other planets beyond theirs, full of life and civilization. The thought of all those creatures waiting to be found, unknown and utterly untouched, sent a thrill of excitement down Jane’s spine. Her father had bought a telescope and set it in the backyard, and Jane had stayed up all night, mapping constellations and searching for planets, staring at them with hunger in her heart, as if her will alone could carry here there. When she turned twenty, her father finally set out on his long-awaited expedition to Africa, but she hadn’t followed him. Jane’s eyes were permanently fixed on the stars. 

She was still gaping at everything like an awestruck child when a voice called out to her from above. “I take it you are my scientist.”

Jane jumped and spun toward the voice. Standing on the upper deck was a woman, undeniably the captain. She was dressed in a sleek blue coat and high boots, with a trim pointed hat nestled between her ears. And it was the ears that really caught Jane’s attention: they were tall and pointed, very much like a cat’s. In fact, everything about the woman was very much like a cat, from her nose and her nails to the fur that covered her face and neck. She looked, Jane thought absurdly, like a mountain lion that had put on a coat and learned to walk upright. Though she was slender, she radiated a power and confidence that Jane could feel even from yards away. She gulped. This was no tame house cat. 

“I – hello!” she stammered. “Yes, my name is Jane Porter. Lovely to meet you.”

The woman nodded. “A pleasure. Captain Amelia, at your service.” One eyebrow cocked as she took in Jane’s flustered appearance, the bundle of sketchbooks in her arms. “I assume that this is your first excursion into the outer rings.”

Jane adjusted the stack of books in her arms. “Near enough.”

“I see.” The captain made her stately way down the stairs toward her, and Jane found herself gaping at the way she moved. There was a fluid grace to her every footfall, a confidence that each movement would take her where she needed to go. Jane had never been that surefooted in her life. “And remind me exactly where in the outer rings we are going?” Amelia continued. 

“Ah!” Jane promptly dropped half the sketchbooks she was holding as she tried to find the right one, then opened it to a fresh page. There was a pencil speared neatly through the bun in her hair, and she plucked it out and began sketching with long, broad strokes. Amelia watched over her shoulder, brow furrowed. 

A galaxy began taking shape on the paper. Jane’s lines were quick, messy, but with an ease gained from a lifetime’s worth of practice. Planets and moons were sketched and labelled, their trajectories marked by sweeping lines, and at the center of it all was a twin-star system, one circling the other in eternal motion. Jane circled one of those planets, a fairly unremarkable one near the middle of the system. 

“This planet here,” she said, “In the Gemini system. I’ve heard from several sources that there’s a creature living there that’s very similar to a species of Earth primate called gorillas. My father studies them. There’s been no real research done on these Gemini system primates, so I thought I’d find out how similar they are to the ones at home.”

“Hmm.” The captain didn’t seem excited at the prospect of studying primates, but her eyes lingered appreciatively on the drawing in Jane’s hands. “Remarkable skill, you have there,” she said.

Jane grinned self-consciously. “Thank you. I’m mainly an illustrator for atlases and scientific textbooks. This is my first real field work.”

“Interesting. And what is a girl like you doing so far from her home planet? I believe Earth is at least three systems away.”

Something in Jane’s stomach lurched, and she ducked her head, suddenly unable to meet the captain’s steely gaze. The truth was that she didn’t know. She’d had so many plans when she first left her planet, but three years later all she was left with was a string of bad mistakes and a suitcase packed in secret. Fear tugged at her with every heartbeat, whispering: _go back, go back._ The research expedition was her only chance. She couldn’t go back. Not ever. 

Jane cleared her throat. “I just want to see the world. _Worlds,_ I suppose. As many of them as I can.”

If the captain noticed her momentary hesitation, she didn’t acknowledge it. She studied Jane for a moment, raking her up and down, before seeming to come to a decision. “Well, I suppose that can be arranged.” She grinned, and Jane caught a flash of fangs. “Welcome aboard, Miss Porter.”

Jane smiled back, and the nerves that had been tickling the back of her mind disintegrated. 

Amelia turned to walk back up the stairs, her demeanor brisk and efficient once again. “We’ll be leaving port in just under an hour,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll have a member of the crew show you to your bunk. You can come on deck again for the launch, if you like.”

“Oh – thank you! I think I will,” Jane said, struggling to pick up the books now scattered across the deck as a crewman ambled his way toward her on his many legs. “I’ll be back shortly, then!”

She thought she heard the captain chuckle at that, but when she glanced toward her she saw no trace of a smile, so Jane decided she had imagined it.


End file.
